Wstrn
by S.K. Millz
Summary: Give me one dozen roses.
1. Canto 1

Canto 1

_Welcome home, friend. I seen you comin in from the plain.  
__Now smell this here. Gunmetal. Polished. Pristine. You wont find no better specimen this side of old man river. See it shine. See how it catch the sun like that. It aint no ordinary pistola. I ever tell you how I got it?  
__Her eyes are like big blue moons and bouncing bouncing. Now she's bouncing and now she's leaning and now her head is sliding and angling back. When I ask her if she's cold she just tilts her head back slyly and does not answer.  
__I kindly spake it. The kid had on gray. That was all I seen. Gray hat. Gray shirt. Looked like an officer. He might could have been one for all I knew.  
__Then I'm holding her in my arms and together we're moving moving to the bedroom and she smells like leaves and when I lay her down in the cold of the bed she smells like when she says it's morning.  
__I'm ahead of you there brother. But you must understand. The kid had on gray. Gun or no, gray in them days meant you was askin for trouble. You understand.  
__Now I'm stopping and I'm trying to say. I'm gazing down at her and I'm trying to say.  
__In fact this gun once belonged to General Grant hisself. I got the white papers and everthing so dont go callin me no liar. A soldier caint rightly sleep at night without his gun, or so the saying goes. At least my father used to say somethin to that effect.  
__We're undressing and then we're moving. We're moving quickly. Then her back is in the sheets and my knees are in the sheets and I'm holding her in my arms and when I ask her if she's cold she jerks away from me and does not answer.  
__With which party was he? Well that's an unfortunate question. But as it turns out he wasnt with neither party. Not in actuality. By Christ's nails and blood he wasnt in league with neither party.  
__The family, they came out and cleared the dead and dyin off their property, then they dug a ditch behind the barn and he was there interred.  
__See they left me stranded with just one round, brother. None more. Just the one.  
__Smell that. Here, come closer. It aint loaded. About three year ago an old cleric warned me of this gun, warned me to keep it holstered for she feared it might yet retain the restless spirit of that young boy. And in some ethereal twist of fate she feared that it might one day have its way with me. Well it aint tried nothin spooky yet and I done given it its chances.  
__Her eyes are big and blue and bouncing. I'm inside of them and I'm inside of her. She smells like leaves and she smells like when she says it's raining in the morning.  
__Friend, I dont presume to know why or how it happened. But it happened. The boy is dead and it aint no amount of moanin and hollerin goin to bring him back. You understand.  
__Everday come twelve noon I sit idly by and give his spirit the chance to have its rightful say, and by God's bones he aint never had nothin to say. You ever put a loaded gun to your forehead and pulled the pecker and lived to tell about it?  
__Finally she asks me if I'm cold. I nod and tell her that I am. I am cold. I am so dreadfully, painfully cold.  
__General Grant, he understood. Fog of war, he called it. After you been out there moren a few day everthing starts to go all wishywashy on you. Blends together. You get that blood pumpin full ought and then you caint stop til everthing about you's deadern a hammer. You understand. General Grant, he surely did. He surely did understand._


	2. Canto 2

Canto 2

He spent the early part of the morning down on his hands and knees shifting the bedroom furniture from side to side. Melissa heard the scrape of the bedframe from the parlor below and streaked upstairs to investigate. She found him lying in the floor with his hat at his feet examining the dusty underside of the mattress.

He pushed up the corner of the big white rectangle and said: 'Did you ever notice.' Then he pointed to a spot on the mattress and waved her over. She looked uncomfortable, so he pulled the sheets back a little further and pointed more vigorously. 'Look.'

The floorboards creaked as she approached on the heels of her boots. She knelt and followed the path of his finger to a line of chickenscratch that adorned the corner of the mattress. ACME, it read.

'Did you do that?' Her accent was vaguely European, worn down by the heat, tainted by local color.

Slowly he shook his head. 'Now why on earth would I do a thing like that?'

'I dont know,' she muttered, folding her arms. She wore a long white dress that skimmed the floor as she walked. Her collar and sleeves were trimmed a bright yellow that closely resembled that of her feathers. About her head was wrapped an old gray bandana that she had pulled back seemingly to reveal as much of her forehead as possible. Beneath the folds of her sundress poked a pair of fine ornate leather boots that shone in the pale daylight and squeaked mutely along the rickety floorboards with every step. 'Same reason you'd go looking for it I presume.'

He ignored her. 'I already checked under the table. Under the desk. It says on all of em.' He let down the mattress and replaced his hat, then she helped him up.

'Should I be concerned?'

'I dont know that concerned's the word I'd use.'

'Alright,' she shrugged. 'Keep it down then if you wouldnt mind. I'm entertaining.' When she made for the door he grabbed her by the wrist and held her back.

'Entertaining? Who?'

'Friends,' she said, twisting free. 'Are you drunk?'

He grabbed her by the arm and held her back. He held her close. 'Can you smell it?' He cupped her cheeks between his palms and pressed his bill to hers, forcing his long dry tongue into her mouth.

'Daffy,' she snapped, shoving him to the floor. The floorboards groaned as he fell and they groaned as he lay giggling. Melissa dried her mouth on her forearm. 'You're drunk,' she said. 'Take a nap.'

Batting his hand dismissively he crawled into the wobbly wooden chair at the foot of the bed and slurred: 'I dont want to. I'm not tired.'

'Take a nap. If I wanted a bum staying in my hotel I'd go down to the pub and pick one out myself.' She went to the dresser and wrenched open the top drawer and removed a half empty bottle of goldbrown whiskey. She took it with her. Then she went to the window and shut the drapes. The room went blue. 'You're here to keep us safe, my son and I,' she said. 'How do you expect to stay alert when you cant even stay sober?'

He pantomimed her nagging with one hand. His hat was old and flat and rested low on his head, shading his eyebrows. He wore dark brown corduroys and his thin wool socks were holey and quickly unraveling. In the corner his boots lay unattended, his wrinkled workshirt draped over them like a shroud. 'I'm the fastest shot in the west when I'm sober,' he deadpanned.

'And when you're too drunk to stand?'

'Second fastest.'

She rolled her eyes.

'Heard any from the Sheriff?' he asked.

'Staying at his ranch all day. You could visit him if you had the time. Or the clothes. Or the decency. Or the intellectual fortitude.'

'I plan to,' he yawned. 'I've been known to clean up nicely when I put my mind to it.'

She went on for a while but he wasn't listening. He could feel the wind coming softly through the drapes behind him. When Melissa was finished speaking she went out onto the landing and eased the door shut behind her. The room went a darker shade of blue.

For a long time he sat pitching back and forth in his chair until he became bored. Then with slow deliberate movements, as if each had been carefully rehearsed, he went about the room, lounging first alongside the windowsill, then facedown in the floor, attempting to eavesdrop on his landlady and her mysterious patrons in the parlor below, then spreadeagled on the bed, his head tilted toward the fluttering pale blue drapes, watching the sun rise up through the fabric a gleaming yellow wire. He never slept more than a few minutes at a time.

He was still drunk when the clock showed _noon. He rummaged through his belongings, retrieved the polished Colt army revolver from the floor of his trunk, produced a single round, sat down at the foot of the bed. He loaded, spun, secured the cylinder. He leveled the gun at his forehead. He squeezed the trigger._

_But the bullet did not fire. The bullet never fired._

_So with his fate in hand he resolved to pay a visit to the sheriff before the day was out and set to rifling through his clothes for the right outfit to wear. He left the gun on the table while he dressed and although the light was diffuse it shone intensely all the same._


End file.
